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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476065">above the village of chamounix</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife'>inmylife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pre-Canon, author is projecting onto pete the plug AND THAT'S FINE, gendercomplicated (not necessarily dysphoria but just genderweird), lapslock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:34:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476065</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>if you ask pete when it started, he wouldn't know how to answer. </p><p>(or, the author has Thoughts about growing up trans and makes pete deal with it so they don't have to)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>above the village of chamounix</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>at the time of writing i've only seen nine episodes of tuc so this might not be ""canon compliant"" or whatever only time will tell</p><p>i know there's a good reason that the whole Growing Up Trans tm thing isn't really done in tuc canon or fanworks, but i've been detangling my own threads of gender-complicated recently, so, uh. time to project. and like if there's a fandom "hey, we explicitly and purposefully don't do this" about it just let me know and i'll take it down, i'm not really In The Fandom so i wouldn't, like. Know</p><p>also i wrote most of this in my phone notes at [checks edit history] one in the morning so if it sucks, uh, that's why</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>it starts when he drops out of college. there's a lot of doors slammed: his bedroom door, the door to his father's car, the screen door shivering as pete slams it shut behind him with his suitcase in hand. there are fights, too many fights - that his semesters in college were a waste of money if he never intends on finishing, that his family should use his goddamn name now that they know it, that why couldn't he have kept the name he was given, that everyone should just leave him alone, that he should just leave. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>so he just leaves. he spends an hour throwing shit into a bag in the heat of rage-fear-shame, and he zips it up, and he walks out the door, and he walks to the train station and buys a ticket inbound. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts the summer before he drops out of college. the anger, the burning knowledge inside that he is peter conlan and he is no one else, even as he falls deeper and deeper into the dream that is losing himself. he tells his sister when she comes home for the fourth of july. she laughs at him. when he tells his parents it's because he screams it, because he feels like he's been dropping hints for so long now and no one's ever picked up on any of them and he is done hiding, peter conlan is done hiding, he is coming out of the shadows, he is here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>this doesn't go over well. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts during finals week. instead of drafting an essay he curls up with darcie in one of the window seats in the library, quiet, carrying on a hushed conversation that abruptly stops every time someone walks by to look at the magazines. it's there that he tells her his name. freshly for-sure chosen after having sat on a list for two months. "peter," he whispers, in the wake of an exhausted grad student stalking off with four back issues of the alumnae quarterly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"i like it," she tells him. "hi, peter." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>something warm swells inside. it's like stepping into a bright shaft of sunlight on a cold day, and he can't hold back a smile. that's him. that's his name. neither of them do any studying for the rest of the day - for once, darcie doesn't complain about how behind she is in organic chemistry - because they sit there leaned into each other and she whispers his name at him over and over again, monologuing about him in the third person while he blushes red and struggles to keep his half-shocked laughter to an acceptable library volume. she knows his name, someone knows his name. it's his, his, his. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts his first semester, when he who will soon be peter conlan spends three weeks hovering just outside the room the queer student alliance meets in, and then a girl with a delicate face and long dark hair catches him skulking in the hallway and gives him a long, calculating look before he can run away and just says, "i always see you here. come sit in the corner and not talk but stop hiding goddamnit." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>hard to argue with that. so, he goes, and he sits in the corner and he does his homework for english or whatever and he listens as people introduce themselves with their pronouns and talk about being gay and trans and other things that he's never even heard the words for before. and eventually there comes a day where he goes and sits in the circle and says hi and talks about being bisexual and staunchly does not give name to the growing suspicion inside that maybe there's something else there, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>there can’t be something else there, isn’t the way it works that he should have always known? he hasn’t always known. this is new. this is scary. this is a tidal wave, a tsunami, that he has no hope of stopping before it hits shore, but that he’s trying his darnedest to ignore anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>of course this doesn't last long. of course this ends with him snapping one meeting, close to tears, a little too stressed out and a little bit drunk, and just saying it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>and, wouldn't he know it, it's alright. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts senior year, where the girl who sits in front of him in history brags about going to a women's college, and the boy who will someday be peter conlan thinks, i could never, without really knowing why. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>those schools are pretentious, is what he tells himself, and i could never have a hope of getting into something like that. or, he tells himself, don’t people go to college to date? to get married? if a husband is something he’s going to have (and he has to have one, there is no other path in the conlan household), where would he find one there? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts at junior prom, which he doesn't go to. partly because he doesn't know who he'd even go with. mostly because he didn't want to pick out a dress. they're expensive and he doesn't like the way they make his waist look. but when he looks at the pictures later, of the guys in their tuxes with their girls standing under the balloon canopy in the cafeteria, he wishes - something. he doesn't know what. something. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts his first day of high school, when he wears a sweatshirt and jeans despite the august weather. it's more comfortable. he doesn't understand why all the girls feel like they need to dress up, to wear makeup and short skirts and whatever. for the boys? whatever. he just doesn't get it, doesn't see the need for it, so he sticks to his overlarge tee shirts and the rare pair of women's pants with pockets. function over fashion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>he doesn’t talk to his classmates that much. he’s not like them. every time he tries he just doesn’t connect. but that’s okay. he and his overlarge clothes are happy on the sidelines.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts in middle school health class when they split into boys and girls and he trails at the back of the girls line and asks, "why can't we learn about both? shouldn't we know how other people's bodies work too?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>the teacher just looks at him and says, "because." this isn't really an answer, but he knows he's not going to get anything better.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it starts in elementary school. he doesn't want to play hopscotch with the girls. he wants to play dodgeball. everyone else calls him a tomboy. he doesn't pay it much mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
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</p><p>
  <span>or it starts in new york city. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>pete conlan has a rolling duffel bag and a backpack to his name, and the cash he'd hastily withdrawn from his savings account before his parents could do anything to it. he also has a few illicit substances and the name of some high school acquaintances. and he has himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>he'll figure it out. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if you liked my trans feelings, i have more of them on tumblr at <a href="https://deep-hearts-core.tumblr.com/">deep-hearts-core</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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